


Still Breathing

by WinterDreams



Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: Angst, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-08
Updated: 2015-01-08
Packaged: 2018-03-06 17:43:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,046
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3143018
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WinterDreams/pseuds/WinterDreams
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Short missing scene for 12x18 where Washington reacts to the news of Tucker being stabbed before the airship arrives and during the flight back to the FEDS and New Republic.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Still Breathing

The chatter on Washington’s radio is blocked out by the high-pitched ringing noise in his ears, and the world is spinning when he peels open his dry eyes. He can taste blood in his mouth and groans at the bruises he can feel beginning to spread across his skin. The fact that the familiarity of the painful position keeps him from remembering exactly where he is should be concerning.

Moments later, Carolina’s voice manages to override all other sounds, and he latches onto that clue. He might have been one of the less skilled Freelancers, but he had only sparse memories of coming back to consciousness on the targeted mission site with Carolina yelling at him. Most of the times it happened in one of the narrow hospital cots at Mother of Invention.

Her voice means this isn’t immediately following the failed implantation of Epsilon, for she had been gone from his bedside and then assumed dead at the bottom of some snowy cliff. Her voice means he’s not still in some UNSC jail cell. It means South hasn’t just shot him or the Meta just fought him or Locus just taken them all out, for she had been absent for all of that.

He blinks at the sky sprawled above him and it all comes rushing back. With a curse, he tries to roll to his feet, which only turns into more cursing when his body thoroughly rejects moving anywhere quickly. Washington forces himself to simply breathe as the pain burrows its way through his body. By the tenth breath, its claws are nestled in but no longer draw fresh agony with each movement, and his attention can move to other matters.

“Come in, Wash,” Carolina’s voice reaches him just as he manages to straighten fully and the noise on the radio solidifies into coherent sentences and words.

“–ETA ten minutes,” a female voice says.

“Carolina?” Washington responds. Locus nor any of his soldiers are in sight. Washington’s gun is where it had fallen during the fight, and he limps over to it.

“Agent Washington, are you okay?” Simmons high tone pounds in his ears, and Washington bites down on the panic the shrill note triggers.

“I’m alive,” Washington tells them all. “I’ll head to your position now. Did the plan work?”

“Yes,” Carolina says at the same time Doctor Grey says something about checking an airway. Washington stumbles a little as he reaches a small incline, arm wrapped around his waist as the air whistles in and out of his lungs. His sides are aching but he knows it doesn’t hurt enough for them to be cracked. Very badly bruised for certain, and he isn’t ruling out the possibility of a concussion. In a way he supposes he’s lucky that Locus seemed to have wanted him to at least be semi-conscious when he delivered any final blows. For someone who claimed to hate Felix’s dramatics, he had been more than willing to speak to Washington before delivering any strikes.

“We have some medical supplies on board,” the unknown woman says.

“Well it didn’t hit an artery,” Doctor Grey’s replies in her usual cheerful tone. “There would certainly be a lot more blood spray. Keep helping me get the armour off, it’s not doing any good as it is right now.”

“What’s going on?” Washington asks. His voice is rasping, but it’s better than fading vision or hearing.

“Tucker’s been stabbed,” Carolina answers after a beat of complete radio silence. “He’s unconscious.”

Washington sways a little and pretends it’s from the pain. For a moment he just wants to stop and close his eyes, but he knows he’ll only see North and South and York and Maine and Tex’s bodies if he does. See the gunshot wounds and shattered visors and splayed limbs that spoke to the final failure they never believed applied to them when working for Project Freelancer.

“Wash? Doctor Grey says he should be fine. The equipment she used for my leg is running low but it’s enough to keep everything under control. The ship’s almost here and she can get a better handle on it once she’s on board and has more supplies.”

“Yeah, okay,” Washington replies and keeps walking, because there is no other alternative. He can’t lose his calm with the rest of the Reds and Blues listening as they try to quell their own fear for their friend.

He forces himself to focus his thoughts only on each foot he places on the solid ground beneath him. If he was anyone else, he might have found his thoughts slipping into the memory of Tucker screaming at him from the mouth of the cave as the rocks fell between them. He would think of Tucker coming to rescue them and the way he seemed to have become _more_ ,just like Washington had tried to get him to become back in the canyon. Washington would once again hear the vulnerability in Tucker’s voice when he’d asked Washington what to do when his trying only seemed to fuck everything up. Then Washington would think about how the whole thing had been Tucker’s plan and it had _worked_ , he _hadn’t_ fucked up this time, and to have him die right after that–

If he had been anyone else, the unfairness of it all might have overwhelmed him. But Washington is– _was_ –a Freelancer, and they had all learned a little something about the unfairness of life by the Project’s collapse.

 “There is no way Tucker’s gonna let that asshole have the last laugh,” Church suddenly says. “And if he lets himself get killed by a fucking knife wound after all the other shit we’ve survived–”

“Like getting run over by a tank,” Griff offers.

“And all the times we thought Donut died,” Simmons adds, and Washington winces a little at that.

“Ooh, or that time–”

“Yeah okay, thanks assholes, would you shut up and let me finish my god damn pep talk? The point is, if he dies over this he is gonna be _pissed_ and I will bring him back just so I can kill the fucktard myself.”

Washington smiles a little at Carolina’s loud sigh and muttering that still makes it over the radio. By the time he stumbles to their group, the ship has landed and is getting everyone on board. They lay Tucker out on a bench, pieces of armour on the ground as Doctor Grey presses bandages to the wound. She’s talking brightly to another lady about how they’ll have to irrigate the wound with antibiotics when they get back, but the healing units they have on them and simply stopping the blood flow is enough for the moment.

The Reds and Caboose sit on the bench by Tucker’s feet, while Carolina and Washington collapse into the seats opposite. From where he sits, Washington has a clear sight of Tucker’s form, and the ship is back up in the air before a minute passes. Most of them slowly begin to take off their helmets as the airship moves further and further from the radio tower.

“I am so glad you are okay, Agent Washington,” Caboose grins at him, and Washington offers a smile back.

“I’m glad you all are.”

“Tucker will be very glad, too,” Caboose says. “He was training very, very hard the whole time and he made us all do those exercises you love so much! He got really mad when Nice Lady and Mr. Felix wouldn’t let us leave to get you right away and he was all mean and sad the whole time. But now you are back, and you can go back to always playing and speaking really loudly with each other because you love each other so much!”

In the silence that follows, Carolina looks over at him. Her helmet is still on, unlike the others, but he can picture her expression and the raised eyebrows perfectly.

“Something you want to tell us, Wash?”

“No.”

“Oh man, I can’t _wait_ for Tucker to wake up and tell me how the fuck this happened,” Church says gleefully, and Washington can already feel the situation spiralling out of control.

“ _Nothing_ happened, Church.”

“Oh really?”

“Really.” He doesn’t think of the bubble of panic that had clogged his throat when Carolina told him Tucker was injured. Doesn’t consider that after all these years, he should be better at controlling any reactions when it comes to injured squad mates. “I mean, we argued all the time back in the canyon–”

“We know, we could hear you from our base,” Simmons complains.

“Yeah, every time we came over it sounded like you two were in the middle of some lover’s spat,” Grif says.

“And that’s coming from these boys,” Sarge says which triggers indignant responses from both of the Reds while Donut nods wisely.

“Trust us,” he’s telling Church. “We’ve been around these two idiots for years and I’m pretty sure Tucker and Wash were _worse_.”

“Since when did constant arguments–”

“But I thought you two made up,” Caboose says, distress making his voice small in the ship’s interior. “After you apologized, you two were talking to each other and we had lots of team building exercises and Tucker really wanted to save you–”

“We did make up, Caboose, but that doesn’t mean–”

“You’re sickeningly in love with him?” Simmons suggests, and Washington wonders how bad it would be if he shot _another_ Red point blank.

“ _No_.” Washington glances at Carolina, who just stares at him and who Washington guesses is simply smirking in amusement beneath her visor. Any further argument is halted by the sudden low noise of pain from Tucker.

“Still not conscious,” Doctor Grey says cheerfully when they all turn to look. “But we’re all out of painkillers for the moment.”

“You know,” Carolina says after a long moment of silence, and he hasn’t heard that sly tone of teasing from her since before Tex showed up, but he still recognizes it the second the words slip past her lips. It instinctively triggers a desire to flee the room as fast as possible, and he has to fight the urge to just close his eyes and groan. “There’s some space by Tucker’s head.”

“Ooh ooh, maybe somebody should go sit beside him and make him feel better!” Caboose suggests, and every gaze turns to Washington.

“Well, son?” Sarge finally asks while Washington scrambles for a reply that will make them drop the subject permanently. Even if he desires the added closeness to Tucker and reassurance that he’s still breathing, saying so will just mean more smugness in the others’ faces. “Aren’t you gonna do something about that? Seeing as you’re the Blue leader and all.”

“That’s your reason–I’m Blue’s leader?” He looks around at all of them, suddenly all the pictures of perfect innocence except for Caboose who simply appears confused as to why there is any discussion at all. When everyone just nods, Washington heaves a loud sigh before heading over to the empty seat they’d indicated. He crosses his arms across his chest and glares at each of them in turn.

“Happy?” he asks, pushing away the contentment that curls around his lungs.

“You know, he would probably be more comfortable if his head was resting on something,” Donut suggests. The others make varying sounds of agreement except for Church who is just snickering. Washington opens his mouth before swallowing down any logical argument about the uncomfortableness of lying on armoured legs.

“Doctor Grey?” Sarge asks.

“I really don’t care as long as you don’t go near my patient’s wound or try to make it worse,” Doctor Grey tells them. Washington closes his eyes.

“I hate all of you,” Washington says.

He glances down at Tucker’s face and the pain creasing it even in unconsciousness. Without looking at the others, he carefully brushes the other man’s dreads aside before lifting his head into Washington’s lap. It seems to satisfy the others, because they drop the topic immediately and go back to murmuring to themselves or simply letting their tired eyes fall close. And if Washington spends the rest of the short ride stroking Tucker’s hair as the tension slowly seeps out of him, he’s under no obligation to tell anyone.

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry if Caboose's line about Tucker and Wash was strange, I had a transition line in my head at night and forgot it the next day. Being sick has probably not helped much there. 
> 
> No beta, so all mistakes are on me. Hope you liked it.


End file.
